Maths at Tiptoe

Maths is a vital life skill - central to what we teach at Tiptoe. Our mathematics approach is to deepen the children’s mathematical understanding through a mastery approach.

Mathematics is a creative and inter-connected discipline that has been developed over centuries providing the solution to some of history’s most intriguing problems. Maths is all around and is essential to everyday life. It is critical to science, technology and engineering, and necessary for financial literacy and most forms of employment. A high-quality mathematics education therefore provides a foundation for understanding the world around us, appreciating the power and beauty of mathematics and for developing a sense of enjoyment and curiosity about the subject.

Aims

At Tiptoe Primary School, we aim to make children’s learning in mathematics relevant, practical, creative, exciting and engaging. Mathematics teaches children to calculate, communicate, reason and solve problems. It enables children to understand and appreciate relationships and pattern in both number and space in their everyday lives. We aim for children to achieve their full potential in this subject. Our approach aims to provide all children with full access to the curriculum, enabling them to develop confidence, independence and competence as well as a love for mathematics.

Mastery in Mathematics

Our maths lessons incorporate the key principles of teaching for mastery. We take all children through the mathematics in small steps to build and deepen understanding. We ask children to reason, discuss and connect their mathematics using mathematical vocabulary and a range of representations to show concepts and relationships. We support children in developing their recall, and use of key number facts including addition pairs and multiplication facts. We challenge children by asking them to reason about and apply their mathematics as well as identify common errors and misconceptions.

SMSC in Mathematics

In our Maths lessons at Tiptoe Primary School pupils are encouraged to delve deeply into their understanding of Mathematics and how it relates to the world around them. Our Maths teaching actively encourages risk taking which enables pupils to explore and try new ideas without the fear of failure. This is fundamental to building pupils’ self-esteem within Mathematics. Throughout history, the study of Mathematics stems from intrigue and curiosity, with people’s desire to pose and solve problems relating to the real world or purely within mathematics itself. We aim for our students to appreciate this and use their own Maths to explore and question the way the world works and also to apply their reasoning to puzzles for their personal satisfaction.

Spiritual

Developing deep thinking and questioning the way in which the world works promotes the spiritual growth of our students.

We are sensitive to students’ individual needs and backgrounds and experience.

We aim to give all students an appreciation of the richness and power of maths.

Maths in Nature is embedded in Sequences, Patterns and Symmetry.

We promote a sense of wonder in the exactness of mathematics in the exploration of complex numbers and real world examples.

We encourage the students to appreciate the enormity of the world of Mathematics as it has developed through time.

We consider the development of pattern in different cultures including work on tessellations such as using Rangoli designs or the use of religious symbols for symmetry

Moral

Within the classroom, we encourage respect, reward good behaviour. We value listening to others views and opinions on problem solving.

We promote discussion about mathematical understanding and challenge assumptions, supporting students to question information and data that they are presented with.

We show the students that we are on a quest for truth by rigorous and logical argument and discourage jumping to conclusions.

Social

In classrooms, we look for opportunities for pupils to use interactive resources (e.g. mini whiteboards, number fans, mini counting sticks) to promote self-esteem and build self-confidence.

We encourage collaborative learning in the classroom – in the form of listening and learning from each other and paired discussion / working partners.

We help pupils develop their mathematical voice and powers of logic, reasoning and explanation by offering explanations to each other.

We exhibit pupils work in classrooms - to share their good practice and celebrate achievement through creating informative displays

Cultural

We share the appreciation with the pupils that mathematics, its language and symbols have developed from many different cultures around the world: e.g. Egyptian and Roman.